The above summary is from the publisher.
When I went through and purchased all the Drina books last fall, I did not purchase this one. This book was published 26 years after what had been the final title in the series. 1991 is a far cry from 1965. I was skeptical about whether the book would mesh with the rest of the set.
My fears were not allayed by a few reviews I read. I saw a couple of negative reviews, which said that the book has a different tone and that it isn't worth reading.
The other reason why I didn't purchase this book is because of how expensive the book is. At the time I purchased the Drina books in fall 2021, this book was going to cost at least $60 for the softcover from 1991. I didn't want to pay that much when I was already taking a great risk with the investment I had made in purchasing the first 10 books.
I had read the first part of the first book and thought that it was great. Upon that sample, I purchased the rest of the first 10 books. I just didn't know how much I would enjoy the set, so I didn't know if I should purchase this later book.
I started reading through the set in February. After I had read two or three books, I decided that I ought to purchase this book. I needed to have it just in case, since the series appeared to be an excellent one. The book I purchased ended up costing $49.11. It could have been worse.
When I read that this book had a different tone, I was imagining something like the difference between the Little House book The First Four Years and all of the previous books in that set. This situation is not at all like that.
Reading reviews is often not helpful. The only way to know whether I will like a book is to start reading the book. I can't go by what someone else says.
The tone of this book is just slightly different. There are a few details that jumped out at me at being odd, but aside from those, the book reads just like the other books in the series. It fits perfectly.
The most jarring detail that does not fit with the rest of the set is on page 39 when Rose says that Igor "can just go to hell!" It's not strange for a book published in 1991, but it certainly wouldn't have happened in a children's book published during the 1960s.
Some readers don't feel that Rose would have become jealous of Drina. I feel like hints of this were set up during the later books in the original series, so I didn't see it as that odd.
On page 19, Jenny has a "little computer." This is logical for the early 1990s, but it makes no sense for the 1960s.
During one passage, Drina keeps saying "okay" which doesn't sound like her. I love that Grant still says "I guess" at the start of many sentences. Perfect!
I was glad that the book did not contain any travelogue information, since that aspect wore on me in some of the previous books. Several of the Drina books have a lot of filler that is travelogue content. The purpose of this book was to wrap everything up in a neat package, so there was no space for lengthy descriptions of various locations.
Aside from the minor differences, I feel that the book fits in perfectly with the rest of the books. I just don't see any problem.
This is an excellent book and is a good conclusion to the set, leaving no doubt as to Drina's destiny.
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